Category Archives: family

Nitrogen-uptake

I bury comfrey leaves in the dusty soil under the holly and next to a hellebore. It is an act of faith, but also a ritual informed by grief for look how dry and pale the soil is, even after a weekend of rain.

And, as if such a calculation mattered, I wonder which is bigger, my grief at all the injuries to the natural world or my grief at the passing of my younger son.

Does one grief nest inside the other like two Russian dolls? It can’t possibly be that neat. More like the two griefs permeate the air, the yard, and my body in undulating waves that cannot be measured or even separated one from the other.

I listened earlier to the parents of a young man stolen on October 7 and murdered some 300 days later and though the circumstances of our boys’ deaths have nothing in common, our sorrow is the same.

“I am broken,” says the mother. “And I will be broken for the rest of my life.” They feel their son near. The father says he thinks of him every minute of every day.

I too am broken. I too think of my son constantly – more, in fact, than when he was alive, which is some contorted form of irony.

I have regrets they will never have. That is one of my burdens. The regrets come and go like the sadness: unbidden, unwelcome, excruciating,

Why didn’t I talk to you more in those last two weeks? Why didn’t I ask you to tell me why you thought life wasn’t worth living anymore? I picture myself patting the couch saying sit for a minute and putting my arm around him for what could’ve been the last time.

The nitrogen–uptake capacity of the comfrey makes it ideal for composting. You can make salves and teas and poultices as well, but this year I plan only to bury its leaves in the garden beds.

Is there anything I can bury near the barren patch of my being that might at some later date afford growth?

Today, I doubt it.

But I will gather chive, thyme, and rosemary from their pots and chop them up to make herb butter. Lemon zest, salt, and garlic for extra flavor. The act signals belief in sustenance ahead. There will be tasty dinners down the road and some above average snacks. That there is a reason to harvest aromatic herbs even when swimming in grief offers me a droplet of satisfaction. No more. No less.

A grieving mother’s ramble

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The goldenrod nods over the dried peony, asserting the ruthless march of time, but delicately.

I listen to the children on the playground yelling with joy and think: all of them will die, a few of them before their parents.

The house will not give up its secrets, so stop trying. “What about that time?” No. Just stop.

The passing sirens shred your nervous system anew. This is your life now —

your life without your second born.

Perhaps the gods, in their greed, grabbed him, wanting both his anguish and his grace for their lofty club.

“Two contradictory things can be true,” a friend said to me.

On occasion the dog howls back at the firetrucks and ambulances. I never know when or why.

That’s the thing about sudden violent death, too. You may never really know why.

I prefer the idea of jealous gods stealing my son even if it’s capricious or comical to them, like a magpie collecting string. Better that than some theorem about how matter can be converted but never lost — carbon and hydrogen molecules returning to soil and clouds, etc.

Listen, the coffee drips through the machine after I push the button, telling me it’s the start of another day — but it doesn’t tell me if it’s a day I’ll want to inhabit.

Hush, say the elegant, nodding goldenrods. Just take things one sweetened caffeinated cup at a time.

And then what?

When the wicked force of grief rips open a chest, the ribs make room for a new kind of breathing, a softer listening. It’s a catastrophe with an upside, the poets say.

The needle I ply goes in and out as if nothing has happened — except now every completed cloth creation puts me in a bind. Do what with this?

A row of felt houses capped by an indigo moon sounds lovely, but nothing can stop the thing from being, ultimately, clutter.

Grief reorients us to stuff. How little any of it seems to matter!

The maple leaves drop first. The birch and ginkgos will follow.

I don’t know where all the sparrows went – I feel lonely without them. At least when the turkey family comes, I get to feel glad. They trot over, all five of them, the chicks nearly as big as the mother now.

There are places in my mind that I cannot go. They’re all in Colorado. Even some random image of the Rockies taps my shoulder and hisses in my ear: he’s gone, he’s gone.

Soon the black walnuts will fall with a percussive fury and for a week to 10 days, we will feel under assault.

That dangerous thudding happens every year, but now so many occurrences will never happen again. Do I, for instance, set a place for him at the Thanksgiving dinner table? An empty plate.

Someone asks, Do you speak to the Ancestors? Do you call out to them?

Does desperate need jinx my chances of an answer? Willpower and sorrow don’t necessarily partner well.

I feel up against it.

The coffee gets brewed. The children run out of the school building and yell. The yard crews come and they go.

Maybe I’ll put radishes in my salad today.

If I’m lucky, the turkeys will run over to me when I head out to the garage.

But please turn off the music. All of the music. Every note. I cannot take it.

Walking at six months

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A poem written on the six-month anniversary of Danny’s death (9/16/26). Digital collage from ages ago using a photo of a boy from Skateboarding Magazine.

Walking

I saw a hawk. Eye level. Flew like a shot across my path.

I’d just been thinking: some people cannot stay, they just cannot stay.

A few houses later, the elegant thing sailed overhead, wings outstretched, riding the thermal currents. Its under-feathers caught the morning light as if to say:

I, raptor, am sacred. You, human, are sacred. And that child who you lost? He too is sacred, still.

And this day? Holy. Holy. Holy.

Post-gathering note

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I couldn’t wait to set my ironing board back up. Who else do you know who’d say that? On the day after, the house still sparkled. Ahhh. That post-entertaining benefit.

Pictures of Dan are still up up on three large pin boards — his face at two, thirteen, twenty-two, eighteen, 11 months, twenty-nine, six, fourteen.

None at age 30.

Dan in Newton, Rockport, Boulder, New York, Las Vegas, Longmont. Dan at Patriots’ games, EMT training, on a bridge in Florence, on snowy mountain slopes, Yosemite, at the orthodontist’s office. And on. And on.

When we talk about memories and the dead, we usually are talking about memories held by those who survive. But I wonder about HIS memories. Where did they go? Are they anywhere?

I cried for most of the day.